


my black eye casts no shadow

by plinys



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Episode Tag, F/F, Femslash February, Femslash February 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-03
Updated: 2018-02-03
Packaged: 2019-03-13 01:26:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13559733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plinys/pseuds/plinys
Summary: “It’s okay, baby. Get it all out of your system.”(Or: an episode tag to s6.12 when Black Siren goes to visit Dinah Drake instead of Oliver in the final scene)





	my black eye casts no shadow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [whiteknightswan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiteknightswan/gifts).



> for zoe who always enables me to be dinahsiren trash

She’s not certain what compels her to come here. 

No, that wasn’t entirely right.

Not really.

Not when she’s known about  _ this  _ place for a while. Not when she’s been here before - pressed up against the wall, hands that had desperately pulled her layers from her body, teeth that had bit down hard enough draw blood, a body that left bruises against hers that lingered in the morning.

This is different. This isn’t hate sex following an fight out on the streets. This also isn’t an apology.

Not when she had to watch  _ him  _ touch her for so long. 

Not when she had acted like she knew nothing about it out of a hint of sentiment for a woman that would kill her if given the chance. 

Not when it was too late to change anything. 

Not when she had just been following orders. 

Not when she’s spent what seems like a  _ lifetime  _ following orders of men worse than her, never able to question them, or move independently. 

Not when there was still a small part of her that held onto  _ doubts  _ caused by a video of a woman with a face like her own, and pictures from a life that she had never gotten to live.

What Dinah needs is a distraction. She needs to get out of her head. Which was why coming  _ here  _ had seemed like the right choice. After all, this house was the only place that she ever seemed to be able to forget who she was for a moment. To forget that she was supposed to be the infamous  _ Black Siren _ , and could instead just be  _ Dinah _ . 

It still feels that way, even when she knocks on the door, and is greeted by the sight of Drake with a gun in her hand as she pulls the door open - a familiar sight by this point - she does not regret coming here, not in the slightest 

What is unfamiliar is the red coloring to Drake’s cheeks not flushed from pleasure but rather from pain. It was a look that Dinah knew all too well. She had lost people too, plenty of people, she was  _ worlds  _ away from anyone who had ever cared about her.

But this was more than that… 

Seeing that look on Drake’s face was different from what she had expected.

She’s not certain why she feels surprise.

Not when she had heard the anguished noises Drake had made when trapped under the rubble. 

“I’ll kill you,” Drake says, voice sharp and in pain. Though she does not make any move to actually act on her word. 

“If you had intended to do that, you would have pulled the trigger by now,” Dinah points out. 

A hand grabs tight to her leather jacket, pulling her forward so there isn’t much space between them, and a moment later she feels the press of Drake’s gun against her ribcage. A threat. One that Dinah is still certain that she won’t act on. 

Not when they’re this close. 

“Give me one reason not to,” Drake says.

Kissing her is easy. 

They’ve done this before. Hot and angry. Pressed together in an alleyway while a fight rages on around them. Rough hands and rough bodies. A hotel room Dinah booked for them on a stolen credit card. 

Kissing her now is different.

Softer.

An echo of their usual fire. 

The gasp Drake makes against her lips is a mix between pain and pleasure.

The sound of the gun hitting the floor echoes in the open space between them, and Dinah uses her boot to kick it aside and out of the way, as they finally manage to pull apart.

She can still see it, in the dim evening light, the reflection of pain in the other woman’s eyes. 

The harsh slap of Drake’s palm against her face is not entirely unexpected, certainly not undeserved. Though when she pulls back to do so again, Dinah shifts blocking instead, coming up to hold tight to Drake’s wrist and stop her from doing so. 

They twist against each other. Not in intimacy but in anger.

This is not how they’re supposed to fight. It’s supposed to be screaming, and the intention to hurt and break and kill. This is anger. This is fire. But for  _ them  _ it is less. It’s Drake’s fist hard against her cheek, needing to hurt Dinah with her own hands. Dinah fighting back just the same, needing to feel real, to feel like  _ herself _ again and not like the ghost of someone else. 

They end up on the ground. 

A well placed knee taking Drake down, a hand hooked around her ankle making Dinah join her there. They push back against each other, neither willing to concede, not really, tumbling about, knocking against the table, crashing hard against the side of Drake’s couch, before the other woman finally seems to find some sort of upper hand, using her newfound advantage to pin Dinah to the ground.

Her body reacts instinctively, hips coming upwards to press against Drake’s. Even in the heat of a fight, her body knows what it wants, what it  _ needs _ . Drake lets out a noise, a hiss between want and disgust.

Dinah’s certain that she deserves that too. 

“I don’t suppose you want an apology,” Dinah says, mocking almost. Mocking is easier than dissecting her complicated emotions when it comes to Drake.

“I hate you,” Drake replies. Angry as always, but with the undercut of pain this time. Repeating the words endlessly. “I hate you. I hate you!” 

Dinah looks up at the woman above her, at the anger that’s there, and simply says, “I know.”

Pointing out that she didn’t really had a choice, that refusing to do so would have labelled her as a traitor as well, wouldn’t make any difference. 

So instead, Dinah stops pushing back. 

She lets Drake’s next punch connect solidly.

It hurts.

There will be a bruise against her cheek, ugly and dark tomorrow.

“It’s okay, baby,” Dinah says, she’s not even fighting back anymore, “Get it all out of your system.”

The hand that had been pulled back to hit her again stops, hovering in the air there, shaking ever so slightly. There’s tears gathering in Drake’s eyes, eyes that were already red, swollen from tears already having been cried, and tears that are threatening to spill again. 

The hit never comes.

Instead there’s a press of lips against hers. Not in anger or passion, but in something softer almost, something gentle and broken, the salt taste of tears against her lips mingled with the blood of a split lip. A kiss that can only ever be described as  _ them _ , that could only belong to a moment such as this one.

Drake makes a sound like a sob above her. Sorrow, something that Dinah isn’t certain she can ever entirely feel again, but something that she felt a ghost of earlier that day, before she put  _ this  _ sadness into Drake soul in an attempt to distract from her own.

They’re both fragile broken things.

Pretending to be so much more.

Pretending to hate instead of hurt. 

Two sides of an all too similar coin, though neither will ever admit it.

When the kiss breaks apart, Dinah reaches up to hold her in place. A hand against her back, in possession and comfort and want and need. 

“I’m sorry,” she says, even though they’re not the right words, even though she doesn’t even truly feel that they are real. 

“I hate you,” Drake replies, a softer echo to it, different from moments before, layered instead with a deeper meaning. One that only Dinah, who knows Drake so well in spite of all their differences, can truly understand.

So, she says those same words she's said before, now once again again, a soft tone as well, just before she kisses her, “I know.”


End file.
